Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was seen clutching a stress ball as he was grilled during a tense House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin was seen squeezing a stress ball as he was berated in a tense House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday.

The controversial Trump administration figure got into a heated spat with Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), over the shuttering of FEMA and the separation of children from their families at the border and during ICE raids, among other topics.

Mullin sidestepped her questions about the child separations and whether or not he's in favor of shuttering FEMA as DeLauro pressed him about the thousands of children who were separated from their families at the border. It came shortly after furious Mullin viciously attacked a representative for asking a question — and the hearing was nearly postponed.

Mullin shouted back that hundreds of thousands of children went missing during President Joe Biden's administration. DeLauro then yelled at him, "Do not interrupt!" She added that he should answer her questions.

Mullin then shouted at her not to point her finger at him: "Don't point your finger at me!" She responded, "I will point my finger."

DeLauro then told Chairman Mark Amodei (R-Fla.), once an ally of Mullin, that he should put Mullin "in his place." Mullin responded that DeLauro should be put in her place instead.

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In another heated exchange, Mullin accused DeLauro and other Democrats of shutting down TSA and other organizations under his department, stating, "We didn't shut them down. You shut them down."

"Answer my question!" DeLauro shouted at him.

"I did," he shot back.

"What are you doing? Why are you moving...?" she started to ask again, referring to the children who were separated at the border.

Mullin skirted the question again, stating, "Ma'am, I answered your question. You were the one who shut them down. The Democrats shut down. How many times did you vote to shut them down?"

Exasperated, DeLauro turned to Amodei and said, "You know, these people come to us to get funding for the work that they do, and we are taking a look at the work that they don't do."

"I'm factually correct. You voted to shut them down. Republicans voted to open them over and over again. Your vote clearly stated that you voted to shut us down. And it wasn't until it became popular — and then, by the way, ICE agents came and helped bring the line down, the same people that you also kept shut down for 113 days," Mullin interjected.

At that point, Amodei was angry, and he berated both warring parties.

"Madam Ranking Member. Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary!" he shouted into his mic.

"I'm answering the question," Mullin said.

"No, you didn't," DeLauro interjected.

"I thought you said you answered it," Amodei said, silencing them both before berating Mullin for his outburst.

"The floor is hers. Actually, I gave it to her. You know, there is a chairman of a committee. That's me. I gave it back to her. She's got it," Amodei said.

Mullin could be seen violently squeezing his stress ball throughout that period.

"This tells me something about who these folks are and everybody on this panel," DeLauro said.

That comment got her a brief reprimand from Amodei, who asked, "Do you have another question, Madam Ranking Member?"

"Yeah, I do, but I didn't get an answer to a question," she answered.

"So the record will reflect. Please ask your next question," he said.

She went on to ask again about the separated children.

Amodei previously warned that he could postpone the hearing altogether if questions weren't being answered by Mullin. He told the pair earlier in the hearing that it isn't meant to be a contest about who can be louder.

"We are going to have something resembling order here," he said. If Mullin should have any points he felt weren't addressed, Amodei promised him a four-minute closing statement.

Mullin carries 'pacifier' stress ball with him to 'keep a steady pace for the day'

It's not the first time the controversial Trump administration figure was seen squeezing a small pink stress ball, either — in a video posted on his social media accounts back in August, when he was serving as the junior senator from Oklahoma, he explained to a group of visitors to the Capitol why he always carries the stress ball.

"Sorry, this is my pacifier," he told the puzzled group as he squeezed the ball. "I've carried a ball since I was in middle school, and I don't know why."

"As funny as this seems, this helps me keep a steady pace for the day," he wrote in the post, which features a montage of Mullin carrying the ball with him as he goes about his day. He added that it drives his wife "NUTS."

It comes as swaths of fed-up supporters walked out of the State Fair while Trump was still speaking, after he made a ludicrous boast.